Teaching Against the Grain as an Act of Love: Disrupting White Eurocentric Masculinist Frameworks Within Teacher Education

What is radical love in teaching? How can radical love incite change and transformation within teacher education? What does radical love entail to prepare critically minded teachers for urban schools? In this conceptual paper, we respond to these questions through our individual and collective experiences as social justice oriented teacher educators preparing students to teach in urban schools. We engage with our womanist ways of knowing (Walker in In search of our mothers’ gardens: womanist prose, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2004) and “theory in flesh” (Moraga and Anzaldúa in This bridge called my back: writings by radical women of color, 2nd edn, Kitchen Table/Women of Color Press, New York, 1983) to collaboratively reflect and analyze our conversations, reflective journaling, meetings, and other telling moments about what it means to practice radical love in teaching. More specifically, we identify three central concepts of what love as an act of resistance or teaching against the grain entails: (1) vulnerability, (2) collective support and healing, and (3) critique. Through these concepts we offer a framework from which to practice radical love in teaching and work in solidarity with others to transform oppressive systems in urban (teacher) education.     

The information requirements and information-seeking behaviours of health and social care professionals providing care to children with health care needs: a pilot study

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this work were to identify the sources of information currently received, information-seeking behaviours, information requirements and preferences for future information provision amongst health and social care professionals providing care to children with health care needs. METHODS: Data were collected using a cross-sectional postal questionnaire survey. RESULTS: A wide range of information resources was reported as being available to professionals. However, a large proportion of respondents found it necessary to perform additional searches for information, suggesting that current resources were not satisfying their needs. The majority of professionals reported a preference for electronic formats, whilst a smaller proportion preferred hard copy materials. Participants promoted the use of informal networks as a means of support and exchange of information. CONCLUSION: Supplementing the information that is provided in electronic and hard copy formats, by enhancing informal networks, may be the most effective way of meeting the information needs of this group of professionals.     

Toward a description of deaf college students' written English: overuse, avoidance, and mastery of function words

The use of function words in 135 essays written by deaf college underclassmen in developmental and credit-bearing English composition classes is described and compared with Standard English (SE) versions of teh same essay. If student and SE version were the same, this was considered mastery; if the student omitted a word, this was considered avoidance; and if the student added a word, this was considered overuse. The deaf students varied from SE more for function than for content words. They demonstrated low mastery of independent clause markers, demonstratives, third-person singular neuter pronouns, and modals related to possibility, but had relatively high mastery of the first-person singular; and some punctuation. These students strongly avoided some dependent clause markers, some demonstratives, the indefinite article, punctuation except for periods and commas, and the modal verbs may, might and should , but greatly overused other dependent clause markers, the second person and third-person pronouns, quantifiers, the verb do, and the modals could and will. They were also more likely to produce run-ons than fragments.     

Trends and practices in functional behavior assessments completed by school psychologists

Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) utilize direct and indirect methods to collect data on student behavior to generate a functional hypothesis and drive intervention development. School psychologists are trained to conduct FBAs and use them regularly in schools. However, no evidence exists describing the specific practices used by school psychologists when they conduct FBAs. In this study, 199 respondents completed a web‐based survey developed using expert review and cognitive pretesting. Most respondents reported their gender as female (87%), were between 30 and 39 years old (50%), and practiced at the Specialist level (57%). Respondents reported receiving training in FBA across multiple sources and utilizing multi‐method data collection methods when conducting FBAs. A large amount of variability was observed in the specific instruments used by school psychologists, with a substantial proportion using forms that were not standardized or pre‐constructed. Implications for current practitioners, trainers, and researchers are described.     

Integration or Separation? Addressing Religious and Spiritual Issues in Multicultural Counseling: A National Survey of College Counselors

Given contemporary ethical concerns, the authors conducted a national survey of 216 college counselors’ perceptions of integrating religious and spiritual issues in multicultural counseling and counselor education. Using cluster analysis, the authors identified 4 patterns of commitments to multiculturalism and religiosity. Respondents demonstrated ethical bracketing in that they considered religious and spiritual issues favorably within the framework of multicultural counseling, irrespective of their commitments to those topics. Counselors can openly address spiritual and religious diversity.     

A “Deleterious” Driver: The “First Teacher” Reform in Sweden

This article investigates the implementation of the “förstelärare” or “First teacher” reform in Sweden. We draw upon the insights of a superintendent, union official, principal, three First teachers, and two of their colleagues in one school, and recent literature on career development reform. We employ Michael Fullan’s overview of the “right” and “wrong” drivers of educational reform to analyse the extent to which the First Teacher initiative cultivated productive “professional capital.” The research reveals: how broader national policy aims were in clear tension with municipal-wide school development, and school-level development efforts; the perverse effects of a strong focus upon salary on professional conduct; and how an emphasis upon teachers’ roles per se undermined the espoused policy focus on enhancing teaching. The research cautions against the problematic effects of the initiative on more profession-oriented prerogatives, and how more external, “deleterious,” drivers of reform militate against more productive professional capital.     

Governing teachers’ work and learning through data: Australian insights

This article reveals the multiple ways in which data are constituted as a vehicle for governing teachers’ work and learning. Drawing on the concept of governance, including in relation to the sociology of numbers, and data from one school in Queensland, Australia, the research reveals how teachers’ work and learning were constituted through practices of: establishing specific ‘targets’, including various ‘audacious goals’ for school and national testing; focusing upon ‘aligning’ all forms of school, regional and national data collected within the school; and participating in various ‘data conversations’ about specific students with senior members of staff. While the research reveals how teachers found such practices beneficial for improving their practice with students, it also shows how this learning was always and everywhere framed within a broader discourse of data, and how this data-centric focus came to constitute what was valued about their work and learning, and that of their students.     

Historicising teachers’ learning: a case study of productive professional practice

This paper reveals the significant historical traces which informed the learning practices of teachers at one particular school site in a rural and regional educational district in Australia. Drawing upon recent theorising into professional practice, the paper argues that teacher learning practices are intrinsically ‘ecologically’ related to teachers’ practices at specific sites. However, extending beyond this theorising, the research also reveals how teacher learning – in the case presented, in relation to classroom dialogue – is also significantly influenced by earlier learning experiences of the teachers involved. In this way, teachers’ practices are revealed as not only influenced by present-day, site-specific, whole-school teacher learning, but also by particular events encountered by teachers at an earlier phase of their careers. The research argues for a conception of teachers’ learning which is not only site-informed and ecologically arranged, but also deeply temporally embedded.